Hope

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Hope is an upcoming event in October 2026 which is being developed by Paul and Sharon O’Gara. They are founders of the Mary O’Gara Foundation, a non-profit organisation dedicated to increasing awareness around mental health and suicide prevention for young people.

The event itself will begin with the third edition of The Hope Walk and culminate in an exhibition to be held in Victoria Building’s PR1 Gallery. The artwork at the exhibition will be provided by pupils and students from local schools and colleges, who are contemplating creative responses to one question:

“What does hope look like for you?”

Whether those responses are drawn, modelled, painted, animated, spoken, recorded or…wherever creativity takes them, the responses will be exhibited in PR1 Gallery from 13th to the 30th October.

To help promote the exhibition, university staff are developing a supporting graphic identity. Early iterations and development of which are shown below. Wooden type is being utilised: it is appropriate for the identity to be created by hand, to allow for imperfection and to communicate a human touch.

The idea is a simple one: each letter of the word grows in height, with each letter growing slightly more than the letter before it. The latest iteration utilises Matt Willey’s MFred (2.0) typeface, which is available at the link in support of Cancer Research UK and Macmillan.

Initial ideas & iterations using wooden type

DEVELOPING THE IDEA

CRAFTING THE typography WITH MFRED (2.0)

Inking up & Printing with the developed typography

PRINTING IN COLOUR

EXPERIMENTING WITH OVERLAYING THE PRINTS

mockup of exhibition artwork

The Benefits of Brown

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This post serves to archive the recent exhibition in Victoria Building’s PR1 Gallery: The Benefits of Brown. Conceived, curated and created by Graphic Design tutor Andy Bainbridge, the collection of items came together to champion this previously uncelebrated shade. Below is a minutiae of the magnitude of items collected over several years, brought together with charm, storytelling and no little historical context. Thank you, Andy.

 

Why have an exhibition dedicated solely to brown, you may well ask? Well our answer would be why not? From our digging it would appear no one has ever attempted one before, so if nothing else that is reason enough in our (brown bound) book.

So with that question out of the way, we can get on with the content.

Brown is a colour that pervades all our daily lives, whether we are conscious of it or not and the collection of items presented here were all collected, ostensibly by one person over the past 2 years. In the main most items were collected within their daily sphere but some were sought out and a few were kindly donated.

We have tried to compile, order and curate some of the collection but some items are simply placed and presented at random for your perusal..

We encourage, no insist, upon your physical engagement with the exhibition. So with that in mind please feel free to examine and handle the items, inspect them and feel free to flick through the print.

The one thing we do insist upon is that you place them back how you found them and resist the temptation to purloin them, as that would really leave us browned off!

Thank you and enjoy!

– Andy Bainbridge

 

With thanks to the exhibition sponsor Preston Board & Packaging.

D&AD – New Blood Winners

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We’re happy to share our annual D&AD New Blood Awards update:

This year, we have two more pencils to be proud of. Mohamed Makkan (aka Jibby!) brough home the much coveted yellow for his response to the Christopher Ward brief. And Chris Dempsey took away a wood pencil for his work on the Morris & Co. brief; both awards were picked up at this year’s D&AD New Blood ceremony in London.

The New Blood Festival provided a great opportunity for students and staff to reconnect with our friends in London. It was pleasing to hear industry feedback on all students’ work, with a particular nod to sharp ideas which cut through the noise of a visually noisy environment.

We were also chuffed to receive three ‘ones to watch’ prizes, awarded to Sannah Ali, Connie Dickinson and Emma Yeomans.

For staff, all work on display was true to Preston thinking and craft, work we are proud to show; and the above prizes just ice the cake. See all the class of 2025 here.

Soak up the work below, look at other entries; and enjoy a few snaps from the Festival.

ThE TIME MAKERS
BRIEF: CHRISTOPHER WARD
– by MOHAMED MAKKAN


yellow Pencil Winner

bringing the outside in
brief: morris & Co.
– by christopher dempsey

wood Pencil Winner

Awards night!

The Festival

The ClASS OF 2025, some old friends below:

V&A East Storehouse

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VAST&ABSORBING

Whilst in London for 2025’s D&AD New Blood Festival, staff took a trip to the recently opened V&A East Storehouse. The £65m warehouse boasts a mind-boggling 250,000 artefacts. Providing a home to the biggest Picasso in the world, a 15th century dome, a two-storey facade of the Robin Hood Gardens housing estate as well as kitchens, countless David Bowie ephemera and more, it is the museum of everything.

Entry is free, and you can stay as long as you like. There’s a lot to take in, and the experience of seeing the workings of a museum, plus seeing the conservators in action is worth the trip in itself. I heard it described as an Amazon warehouse, only stuffed with all the world’s treasures, which sums it up better than I ever could. When in London, make sure you have a look.

museum branding

if you’re into it, it’s in the V&A.

A sample of delights

D&AD – New Blood Winners

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Great news from this year’s D&AD New Blood Festival.

Congratulations to University of Central Lancashire graduates, Zakiyya Mulla and Amir Patel. From the Preston class of 2024, Zakiyya was awarded a graphite pencil, while Amir earned a wood pencil at this year’s D&AD New Blood ceremony in London.

Both designers impressed the judges with their incredible work on the IMAX brief, have a look at the projects below.

Reframe with IMAX
– by zakiyya mulla


Graphite Pencil Winner

IMAX CHEVRONS
– by amir patel

WOOD Pencil Winner

Resource Klaxon: SearchSystem

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Here we feature SearchSystem, the latest addition to our Archives list. It does exactly what it says on the tin and is another fantastic resource available to anyone, for free. It is Julian Van Havere’s curated collection and can be easily searched using the index by selecting tags such as ‘graphics’, ‘guidelines’, etc.

It was brought to our attention via our subscription to David Airey’s Identity Designed newsletter, another useful tip for the design magpie.

Enjoy.

D&AD – New Blood Winners

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Big, big congratulations to Olivia Kelly and Phil White who both won a wooden pencil at this year’s D&AD New Blood Awards!

 
 

Olivia and Phil

Olivia answered the OMO, Unilever Persil copywriting brief.

The problem set was to encourage a new generation to dream and dare, because you don’t achieve your dreams by playing it safe.

Olivia took the insight ‘6 out of 10 British adults are afraid of taking risks. With Persil wanting to bring their ‘Dirt is Good’ message to a new audience of young people who don’t have families, it is time for Persil to encourage their new audience to dream, even if it's only for a minute’ and flipped the proposition on its head and asked the audience to dare to dream instead.

This new angle led to the copy based solutions below.

Phil answered the Heineken brief. The problem set was to reposition Heineken as the catalyst for making a fresh connection. Phil’s response was inspired by the notion of Dutch Courage:

Fear has no cultural or geographical restraints. There are so many different phobias but the affects they have on us are the same emotionally and physically. Fear can inhibit us from achieving goals or strive to make a positive change.

Heineken Dutch Courage is a festival based event, where people are challenged to reinvent themselves and come face their fears head on. The goal is for people to meet, support, share and bond over their fears through a fresh and rewarding experience.

filter*

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A branding and packaging project created by Sophie Robinson, in response to a brief written by LOVE to create a new sun care range targeted at Gen Z.

CONFERENCE WEEK 12

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Here we feature nearly all of our Conference Week 12 speakers talks. To watch each talk simply click on the highlighted names below.

Nick Asbury & Greg Quinton talk smile in the mind

Nick Asbury talks about writing

Greg Quinton talks about the day job

Monika Fosberg talks about her working practice

Tom Farrell talks ideas

Andrew Griffin talks Illustration & Animation

Martin O’Neill talks all things collage

Dani Molneux talks all things Dotto

Maisy Sumer talks about her practice

Owen Hughes talk strategy

Andrew Ross talks about ideas in Graphics

Jo Moore talks about ideas in advertising

Jamie Supple talks about his process

Craig Oldham talks all things film

Jim Sutherland talks about the importance of play

Modern Illustration

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Unsure how we originally came across this website, but Modern Illustration is an excellent archive we’ve been spending some time on.

Its content is specifically of print circa 1950-1975, and is the work of Zara Picken.

It is vast, brilliantly curated, and well worth a chunk of your time.

Modern Illustration